A semiconductor process chamber commonly comprises a container, a lid, and a seal that seals an interface between the container and lid. The lid is usually movable between a position whereat it closes an access opening into the processing space, and a position whereat the access opening is uncovered for loading/unloading of the processing space. The container's interface surface and/or the lid's interface surface can include a circumferential groove in which the seal is situated.
Many semiconductor manufacturing methods now use processing chambers to create ultra-high-vacuum (UHV—pressures lower than about 10−7 pascal and/or 10−9 torr) and/or ultra-high-purity (UHP—total maximum contaminant level of 10 ppm) environments. These manufacturing methods can involve repeated opening and sealing process chambers so that substrates (e.g., wafers) can be continuously loaded, processed, and then unloaded therefrom. Slow production rates (e.g., caused by long pump-down times), significant equipment downtime (e.g., for seal replacement or interface cleaning) and/or substandard yields (e.g., due to particle generation) are generally viewed as undesirable by semiconductor manufacturers.
Exemplary seals that are known in the art for sealing such processing chambers are disclosed in the following patent documents: U.S. Pat. No. 6,286,839, US 2009/00174152, US 2008/0018058, US 2007/0075503, WO 2009/038022. Such seal designs generally include first and second sealing elements in the form of an elastomeric sealing element and a metallic or polymeric sealing element, respectively. The metallic or polymeric sealing element is typically situated to shield the elastomeric sealing element from plasma within the chamber that may otherwise degrade the elastomer. Many of these designs lack a provision for interlocking the first and second sealing elements together, or provide an interlock that is significantly spaced apart radially and/or axially from the sealing surfaces of the second sealing element. Further, many of the designs employ voids between the first and second seal elements.